Improving Wifi Signal with a Parabolic Antenna

Havent written for a looong time.

 

Just sharing a new discovery from the internet about improving your wifi signal. It actually worked for me. It improved my wifi signal in my room from 1 bar to 3 bars. A really cheap alternative way for buying expensive high gain antennas. This tutorial is very easy to follow and im sure all (if not, atleast one XD) materials can be found inside your  house.

 

Materials:  

1 rectangular cardboard; a folder will do.

aluminum foil

scotch tape

small rectangular piece of styro

a screw driver (or anything than can be used to put a whole on the styro)

super glue

scissors

 

Step 1:  Cut a rectangle from your folder. (i have mine 1/4 of the whole long folder).

Step 2: Cut a little bit bigger rectangle from your aluminum foil.

Step 3: Cover one side of your rectangular folder with the aluminum foil and tape the exceeding foil at the back.

Step 4: Curve the aluminum-covered folder with the aluminum inside creating a parabolic shape.

Step 5: Create a hole in the styro for the antenna of your wireless router and glue it on your parabolic “dish”. But positioning of the styro will depend as long as the tip of the antenna is at the center of your folder. Use a super glue, using a normal glue wont work, the “dish” will just fall off.

 

Pics to come a little later. XD 

HOWTO: Run a Linux Live CD ISO Inside Windows

Too impatient to burn your iso image file to a CD and try your newly downloaded distro? here’s a not-less-than-1-minute howto to run your Live CD inside Windows.

“not-less-than-1-minute” = assuming you have downloaded and installed all necesarry files.

Here is the originial link: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/beginners-guide-run-linux-like-any-other-program-in-windows.html

Here is my summarized version:

1. Download and install vmware player from http://www.vmware.com/download/player/ and extract this config file to any desired folder to run live CDs from http://linux.wolphination.com/data/OS.zip

2. Open the file named OS.vmx (VMWare Configuration File, 1Kb) with notepad.

3. On the line that says “C:\Your file” change it to point to your linux live cd iso file. For example, mine is D:\OS\pclinuxos-2007 since i copy pasted my file to where i extracted the OS zip files.

note: do not delete the double quotes when you edit the file

4. Now click on OS.vmx to start your “live cd booting”.

5. Have fun.

Guide for uTorrent’s WebUI

If you are a torrent-er and is in deep love with uTorrent like me. Well you are lucky because they just released their WebUI. Access your uTorrent downloads from any PC.

Here is a guide for setting up uTorrent for WebUI: http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/remote-control-your-torrents-with-utorrents-webui-260393.php

Have fun.

Note: I have’nt tried this due to my ISP’s blocking of ports. For the millionth time, damn SmartBRO!!!

Step by step Ubuntu Studio Installation Tutorial

I’d really really love to switch to linux and I just found another eyecandy for me. Its Ubuntu Studio 7.04. I have 4GB left to fill my 54GB data partition (this is my reason to my kuya for having to reformat the computer, kunwari its already full but all what is inside are junks and undeleted DVDrip movies sizing upto 900mb each, hehehe). *sigh* I already have MEPIS 6.5 in my stack.

Anyway here’s a digg for you.. or a blink.. or another del.icio.us favorite. A step by step tutorial in installing Ubuntu Studio 7.04

Link’s here: http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntustudio_7.04

Surf Faster with Firefox

You can surf faster with Firefox without installing any plug-in. I read and have been doing this trick years ago and I can see the difference. I just want to share this to those who haven’t heard of this hack for Firefox.  You can do this by:

1. Type about:config in the address bar. Hit enter or return. (this opens firefox’s web configuration)

2. Scroll down to “network.http.pipelining”. Switch it to “true”.

3. Switch “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”.

4. Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to 30 or something around it. This means it will take 30 requests at once. That is why it is defaultly set to 1 for dial-up users.

5. Right click anywhere and click New > Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. The value means how long will the browser wait before it responds.

Google Reader Tips and Tricks

Are you one of those who read about the “what’s up’s” all over the world through feeds? In this post you will learn how to navigate easily your daily feeds with Google Reader. I myself is fascinated by this free service of Google. And now I’m more fascinated of what I’ve learned.

Original link: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/10-smart-hacks-for-google-reader.html

1. Sort your feeds by priority.

Google Reader makes it easy to organize all of your feeds by topic. However, I would also suggest that you categorize
your feeds by priority as well. This way, you know which items are “Must Read” and which items “Can Be Skipped” on days that you’re busy.

2. Use Keyboard Shortcuts.

You can’t become a Google master without learning the keyboard shortcuts for Google Reader. These little tweaks can save you a good bit of time in the long run.

Some of the most common shortcuts include:

j/k: item down/up
o: open/close item
s: toggle star
m: mark as read/unread
t: tag an item

For a complete list of Google Reader shortcuts, grab this Cheat Sheet

3. Optimize your feed reading time by combining certain feeds into one large master feed.

This can be done using FeedShake. Feedshake allows you to merge, sort, and filter multiple RSS feeds. You can also use filters and tags to create a more customized feed.

For a more advanced solution, you can try Yahoo Pipes. Yahoo Pipes is a very powerful RSS feed remixer that gives you the ability to create web mashups that combine a variety of data from different sources. Yahoo Pipes takes web aggregation to an entirely new level.

4. Add tags to your feed items.

Google Reader lets you organize all of your feed items by tags. This is one of the best features for those who are
looking to optimize their time.

To add a tag to a post, simply click “add tags” and enter the relevant tags.

5. Search your feed items.

The only feature that I would really like to see in Google Reader that is currently missing is a search feature. Fortunately, there are ways to work around this.

You can use Google Reader Custom Search to search your feeds using Google Co-op inside Google Reader.

6. Star items for future reference.

Google Reader enables you to quickly star items for future reference. This can come in handy for items that you want to refer to later.

7. Smart Google Reader Subscribe Button

The Smart Google Reader Subscribe Button makes it easy to subscribe to a site’s RSS feed while also letting you know if you’ve already subscribed to that site. If you subscribe to a lot of feeds, this kind of tool is very handy.

Another great way to add RSS feeds on the fly is with the subscribe bookmark. This tool enables you to quickly
subscribe to any site that you find interesting while surfing the web.

To access the subscribe button, click on Settings on the top right-hand corner of the Google Reader interface and
then click on Goodies. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see detailed instructions on how to use the subscribe bookmark.

8. Use Expanded View.

For optimum productivity, use expanded view. Expanded view makes it very easy to scroll all of your feed items and
scan for interesting posts.

However, I don’t suggest that you simply scroll down the page. You can go from one entry to the next simply by
pressing the “J” key. Whenever you want to go backwards, use the “K” key to return to the previous post.

9. Do a weekly or monthly cleanup.

Over time, there are certain feeds that you simply don’t read anymore, or read very infrequently.

These feeds should be dumped on a regular basis to keep your feed reader under control.

Google Reader has an excellent feature known as Subscription Trends that keeps track of where you do the majority of your reading. This will help you to quickly identify any feeds
that need to be dumped.

If your subscription trends reveals a feed that is read less than 5%, then it’s probably time to delete it. Fortunately, you can delete any feed directly from the Trends page.

10. Dedicate a certain time of the day for reading your feeds and stick to your allotted times.

If you allow yourself 30 minutes to read through your feeds each day, then stick to it. Believe me, everything will still be there tomorrow.